Unto the Breach: China Miéville’s “The City & the City”, Nationalism, Perception and Freedom
This essay contains spoilers for China Miéville’s “The City & the City”.
What is a nation?
The definition of “nation” that is most commonly agreed upon is that a nation is a large group of people, united by common ethnic heritage, language and tradition, forming a political entity.
Nations are, in a broad sense, how peoples distinguish themselves from other peoples, based on the comparison and contrast of ethnic traits.
Take food, for example: The food that can be grown and cultivated in an area of land influences the diet that a set of people living within the vicinity eat, first to subsist, and then as tradition, as the cultivation and culinary art of preparing that food is refined and perfected.
Culinary differences even find themselves into nationalist insult – see how the English and the French mock each other’s dietary habits, the English with “frogs” and the French with “rosbifs“.
This is but one example. Nations are a way for a people to distinguish themselves from other peoples, but they are also a way to self-determine; it is in theory a way to use collective power to choose how the people should govern themselves, and to choose allegiances.
The notion of Westphalian sovereignty, born out of the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1648, gave rise to the idea that one territory can have one set of laws and that another territory can have another set of laws – a nation forms a state, and the state defines what is and is not permissible.
It is the notion of nation, nation-state, the distinction of one people from another, and what this implies for freedom and our perception of reality that is at issue in China Miéville’s 2009 novel The City & the City.
The premise of the novel is deceptively simple: The corpse of a young woman has been found abandoned under a mattress in a skate park in the city of Besźel, a small, run-down, backwater city-state located somewhere around the Balkans in Southeastern Europe. Tasked with investigating the murder is our narrator, Inspector Tyador Borlú, and his partner, Constable Lizbyet Corwi.
The first chapter plays out mostly as a typical police procedural, but things become immediately strange at the end of the first chapter:
An elderly woman was walking slowly away from me in a shambling sway. She turned her head and looked at me. I was struck by her motion, and I met her eyes. I wondered if she wanted to tell me something. In my glance I took in her clothes, her way of walking, of holding herself, and looking.
With a hard start, I realised that she was not on GunterStrász at all, and that I should not have seen her.
It is here that we discover for the first time the novel’s central conceit: Besźel shares its physical, but not its ontological, location with another city-state called Ul Qoma, a thriving, post-Communist Silicon Valley, whose citizens exist in the same physical space as Besź citizens. The citizens of both cities are trained from birth not to see the people in the other city, by paying close attention to gait, posture and clothing.
The geography of the two cities reflects this – areas considered to be entirely within Besźel are referred to as total, those considered to be entirely within Ul Qoma are referred to as alter, and those places that have corresponding presence in both cities, with one notable exception, are known as crosshatch. Much of the novel is given over to Borlú’s meticulous explanations of how exactly this works. Driving, for example, is made that much harder by not only having to be mindful of Besź cars, but also of Ul Qoman cars, which drivers are not, strictly speaking, meant to consciously perceive, but must, nevertheless, weave their way around.
The question, of course, then becomes: Why does Borlú say that he “should not have seen” the old woman? What would happen if he did indulge himself in a temporary fit of fancy?
The answer comes in the form of Breach.
Breach, as stated by Syedr, the nationalist leader of Besźel, is “an alien power”. Breach is a strange, almost-supernatural force of nature that appears any time someone commits the crime of seeing and interacting with that which must not be perceived. Breach transcends the cities and, in so doing, secretly polices both. And in serious cases, Breach can be invoked, through processes that are not exactly made clear.
Borlú recalls seeing Breach attend a car accident once, in which an Ul Qoman vehicle skidded and smashed into the wall of a Besź building, killing a Besź pedestrian instantly. Strange figures emerged as if from nowhere, grabbed the perpetrator and vanished, leaving the local police in either city to clean up the mess. Nobody knows what happens to those who disappear – just that they are never seen or heard from again.
Breach is held in high esteem, in awe and even worship by everyone living in the two cities. Their abilities are thought of as being godlike and strike terror into the hearts of even the most stoic.
As the plot moves forward, the dead young woman is identified as being Mahalia Geary, an American PhD student who worked not in Besźel, but in Ul Qoma. This seems to be a clear case of breach – it appears that someone in Ul Qoma killed Mahalia and dumped her body in Besźel. Tyador therefore goes to the trouble of trying to invoke Breach, but this hits a snag when another bombshell drops: no breach occurred.
The one exception to the crosshatching rule mentioned earlier is a building called Copula Hall, which is not crosshatched, but actually exists in the respective geographies of both cities simultaneously. Copula Hall is the internal border between the two cities, and a road runs through it, in the middle of which is a “membrane”, the only part of the city where it is permissible to look across and see the other city, though not both.
Someone stole a van in Besźel, drove it to Copula Hall, somehow blagged their way past the guards, made it through the “membrane” and into Ul Qoma. While the van was in Ul Qoma, Mahalia was murdered. The van then travelled back through Copula Hall, re-entering Besźel, and Mahalia’s body was dumped. As Borlú says:
The theft of the van and the dumping of the body in Besźel were illegal. The murder in Ul Qoma was horribly so. But what we had assumed was the particular transgressive connection between the events had never taken place. All passage had appeared scrupulously legal, effected through official channels, paperwork in place. Even if the permits were faked, the travel through the borders in Copula Hall made it a question of illegal entry, not of breach. That is a crime you might have in any country. There had been no breach.
This is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the novel: The deadly-serious way such an absurd system is observed so ardently by those living under it. It sounds almost humorous when describing it: A person living in a crosshatched street in Besźel, for example, next to a building located in Ul Qoma, cannot simply walk next door and knock for a cup of sugar. That would be breach. To visit one’s next-door neighbour in Ul Qoma, one must travel all the way to Copula Hall and back to gain entry to the other city. This is rather like someone in Croydon having to travel all the way to Westminster and back just to see someone living across the street from them.
Borlú describes various aspects of folklore and culture that have arisen around this bizarre national setup: urban legends of star-crossed lovers, one in Besźel, one in Ul Qoma, who live right next to each other, forlornly pining for each other, both never able to touch or speak to the other even while walking side-by-side down the street, neither being permitted to perceive the other lest they cast down the holy fury of Breach on their heads.
Besź police seeing and then unseeing Ul Qoman pickpockets are not permitted to do anything about it, since, as Borlú puts it, “Breach is a worse transgression than theirs.”
The left-wing “unificationist” faction, or unifs for short, operating on the fringes of the two cities’ respective political cultures, believe that the two cities share a common ancestry, and that the two languages spoken in either city – a supposedly Uralic tongue called “Besź” in Besźel, a more Turkic tongue called “Illitan” in Ul Qoma – are more or less the same language.
An archaeological dig in Ul Qoma turns up artefacts from the histories of both Ul Qoma and Besźel, supporting, perhaps, this hypothesis that the two cities were once one, and they diverged at some point in history, now forgotten.
And then there is the legend of Orciny. Orciny is, according to local folklore, found in the dissensi, the places that Besź think are Ul Qoman, and Ul Qomans think are Besź. Orciny is, according to the story, a secret, third city between the cities, and possibly even the precursor of both.
Mahalia Geary, it transpires, was obsessed with Orciny. More than obsessed, in fact – she made contact with them.
My goal here is not to give a full synopsis of the story, but rather what philosophical points it seems to be making.
So, here is what we know so far: There are two cities, whose inhabitants must never perceive each other, in case they bring down Breach on their heads. A woman, known to be obsessed with the idea of a secret, third city between the cities, has turned up dead. From the outsider perspective of the novel’s reader, this seems to be almost farcical, there is almost a black humour to how much the investigation of the murder is obstructed by the enormous amount of red tape it takes to even travel between the two cities.
Yet, there is also a deadly serious point being made by this story, and it is thus: Is the situation in Besźel and Ul Qoma really more absurd than the idea of nation-states in general? If state power is employed to use its monopoly on violence to restrict freedom of movement, is that any stranger than the powers employed by Breach to restrict freedom of movement simply from one building to another?
Indeed, situations like Ul Qoma and Besźel have, in all seriousness, really happened around the world.
Berlin used to exist in the socialist German Democratic Republic, with a walled-off enclave of the Federal Republic of Germany, known as “West Berlin”, existing inside East German borders. East Germans trying to cross into West Germany, and vice-versa, faced breach powers of their own, as guard towers shot them as they ran across no-man’s-land.
Or, in a case that will be quite familiar to many people in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, in living memory there existed barricades in the Six Counties during the Troubles, splitting cities like Belfast and Derry along religious lines. All Besźel and Ul Qoma have done is replace physical barricades with psychological ones – a Berlin Wall that exists entirely in the realm of perception.
Towards the novel’s end, Borlú tries to help Mahalia’s friend Yolanda escape Ul Qoma, only for Yolanda, also, to be murdered – this time at the checkpoint in Copula Hall: A shooter in Besźel fires a bullet that flies into Ul Qoma. Enraged, Borlú gives chase to the shooter through crosshatched streets, seeing but not seeing the shooter, carrying a pistol. He finally manages to corner the shooter in Besźel while in Ul Qoma, but the shooter leads him to a road that ends in an area that is total Besźel – Borlú cannot go any further. Furious, Borlú does the only thing he can think to do at that moment, and shoots the killer dead.
Immediately, he is captured by Breach, who drag him away and knock him unconscious, imprisoning him in a large building high above the two cities. Here, he is interviewed by a stern man we later come to know is named Ashil. As part of Breach’s investigation into Borlú’s breach, Borlú is allowed to finish investigating, with the caveat that he now “belongs to Breach”, and he no longer has any police powers. He has been disappeared.
In the course of his investigations, Borlú is allowed to leave the Breach headquarters where he is imprisoned, accompanied by Ashil, and realises, to his own shock, that he is not in Besźel or Ul Qoma. He is in both.
As if to illustrate this, Ashil buys him breakfast from a street stall in Ul Qoma, then nips into a convenience store in Besźel to get him a carton of orange juice. Around them, people see, then quickly unsee them, unsure of in which city it is that they reside. They ride a tram in Besźel, a subway in Ul Qoma, no longer restricted by perception. It is as though the narrow chinks of Borlú’s cavern have been cleansed, per Blake, and he sees, for the first time, the city in its totality.
Eventually, Borlú solves the case. Orciny doesn’t exist. Orciny never existed. Mahalia Geary figured out that it never existed, and her killer, a professor working in league with a large American corporation with an office based in Ul Qoma, was so enraged that she managed to figure it out that he beat her to death. He then used his contact in Besźel to move the body out of Ul Qoma, and, ironically, had an out-of-date map. The body was meant to be thrown into a canal in Besźel, but a skate-park had been built in the meantime, which was what led to its discovery. The professor ends up taken in by Breach and vanishes forever.
As the American CEO flees the country with his helicopter, he utters perhaps some of the most poignant words in the entire book:
“I’m neither Besź nor Ul Qoman,” Croft said. He spoke in English, though he clearly understood us. “I’m neither interested in nor scared of you. I’m leaving. ‘Breach.’” He shook his head. “Freak show. You think anyone beyond these odd little cities cares about you? They may bankroll you and do what you say, ask no questions, they may need to be scared of you, but no one else does.”
He sat next to the pilot and strapped himself in. “Not that I think you could, but I strongly suggest you and your colleagues don’t try to stop this vehicle. ‘Grounded.’ What do you think would happen if you provoked my government? It’s funny enough the idea of either Besźel or Ul Qoma going to war against a real country. Let alone you, Breach.”
And in these lines, uttered by an American capitalist, one of the novel’s most interesting aspects becomes clear: That Borlú’s perception of events is unreliable, entirely by virtue (or vice) of his being Besź. Nobody outside the two cities fears Breach, or even considers them that much of a threat. The CEO sees Breach not as a fearsome, god-like higher authority, but as a cockamamie foreign police force, and not one he has any interest in dealing with. Though he is, undeniably, a horrible person, Croft unwittingly demonstrates to us that Breach are, ultimately, only a very localised superpower, a strange quirk of psychology that precisely nobody outside the city’s borders is really fooled by.
As it turns out, the apparently supernatural powers possessed by Breach aren’t supernatural at all – they, too, are simple quirks of psychology. It is not that Breach emerge as though from nowhere, it is that Breach are always in quantum superposition; never quite in Besźel or Ul Qoma, but both, flickering between the two like hazy ghosts, perceived and unperceived, their invisibility maintained by fear.
As the novel ends, we learn the tragic truth of Borlú’s fate: He can never return home again. He is permitted to bid some sort of goodbye to his lovers and to Corwi, and is then press-ganged into Breach. This is where Breach get their staffing: those that breach, belong to Breach, and they become Breach. Borlú loses his identity and becomes Tye, avatar of Breach, neither Besź or Ul Qoman, but occupying the inbetween.
Yet, Tye’s fate is not entirely a bitter one. Indeed, it is tragic that he can never see anyone from his old life again. But there is something ironic in Tye’s fate, all the same. For in losing his freedom and becoming forever a prisoner of Breach, Tye becomes more free – he can now, without fear, travel between the two cities, as they become one in his perception. Is it a happy fate? Definitely not. But it is a more mundane fate than the fearsome, Old Testament wrath we are led to believe. Breach is a sort of purgatory.
Shortly before her death, Yolanda speaks about Orciny, of whose existence she is absolutely convinced, and she suggests in passing that Breach is, secretly, Orciny. This is not true, of course, Orciny doesn’t exist, but she is, unwittingly, correct in one sense: That being that Breach really is the place between places – the unperceived interstice, the city’s totality occupying that psychic liminal space. Tye closes the novel with these words:
I sign off Tye, avatar of Breach, following my mentor on my probation out of Besźel and out of Ul Qoma. We are all philosophers here where I am, and we debate among many other things the question of where it is that we live. On that issue I am a liberal. I live in the interstice yes, but I live in both the city and the city.
I won’t close off my own essay by suggesting that the novel is a spur to action. I doubt its politics are that active. It forms, more, a passive critique: Much like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which some feel was a critique of the mathematics that was becoming popular in Carroll’s time, so too does The City & the City feel like a critique of the nationalist ideals becoming popular in our time.
Nations are venerated by the far-right, and even by conservatives, though usually only the nation to which that person belongs. And in the novel’s world, there are far-right nationalist groups that want their city to be the only one, to crush the other. It is implied that Breach is the only thing stopping this.
Nations are also venerated by Marxist-Leninists, who value the power of nations as a way to unite an oppressed people against an imperialist force that seeks to exploit them. Indeed, the left-wing unifs of Besźel and Ul Qoma do not wish an anarchist end to the nations, but rather a unity of the two, the birth of a newer, freer nation. Indeed, both cities are implied to have overtaken each other technologically and economically over the centuries at different intervals, with Ul Qoma currently leading.
Internationalism seems to be a luxury only really enjoyed by privileged capitalists like Croft, to whom borders are nothing more than an inconvenience that one with enough influence and money can simply buy their way past. Croft doesn’t care about Breach because he has money, and if Breach laid a finger on him, they know damn well that the United States military would turn their city into a smouldering, possibly radioactive crater.
Yet, the novel seems to call to attention that all nations are, really, are a collective fiction. They are stories we tell ourselves. We distinguish ourselves from other nations by disgust or admiration of their eating habits versus our own, by the clothes they wear, the gods they worship. When you cut a man, his nationality doesn’t come pouring out. The people of Besźel and Ul Qoma are the same people, kept apart only by arbitary habit and by their need to supersede the other, for reasons long since forgotten.
Of course, this is not a resolution in itself. The two cities would not be better off if they just hugged it out. Geopolitics, both in the world of the novel and in the real world, is rarely so simple. For every nation, there is an ardent nationalist, and diplomacy can only go so far.
We construct such fictions in our philosophies to make our chaotic, unknowable world make sense. The vanity of nations persists, and we are merely observers through the narrow chinks of our respective caverns. The City & the City serves as a reminder that there are layers to freedom; that the inner halls of our psyches, our perception and worldken are as much a boundary as any border-gate or armed guard; and that sometimes, the most radical act of liberation is simply the act of seeing.
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